Sunday was the Bean Soup and Cornbread Day our customers begin to ask about in the Springtime!  “Are you going to have that “bean soup and cornbread day” again this year?

Yes, we are, and yes, we did!

The parking lot was a madhouse (I stopped watching as people backed out amid the cars double-parked in the lot and along the highway!) and folks brought lawn chairs and listened to the band.  This year we had Bluegrass Express and they were wonderful! 

If you didn’t get a chance to see the exquisite (and I don’t often use that word) leaf creations from Earthly Delights, you have another chance.  She’ll be back next Sunday for another go ’round.  The larger leaves could be used as a birdbath or bird feeder, the smaller ones as a garden ornament or…whatever you like! They are so beautiful, colorful and organic! 

We’ll also have chili and cornbread from 1-4 (or while it lasts!) and music from Blue Haze from 1-3.

The first day of our Harvestfest is over.  Whew! What a crazy day!  We had some of our staff at The Schrader Center at Olglebay, where we were sponsoring a series of talks for Master Gardeners and had a table set up with literature and stuff for sale.  Bob and the rest of the staff (without me) held down the fort here, with hot dogs and pop, face painting, an adult and a kids’ craft activity. 

Where was I? Making bean soup and corn bread for tomorrow’s Harvestfest, Day 2.  We’ll have live music, too!  Will you join us?  We’ll be waiting for you!

We’d like to offer our congratulations and best wishes to Dawn Gower Seymour (our Landscape Manager) and her husband Dave, on the birth of Hannah Renee on Monday, September 14th.  She was 6 pounds, 14.5 ounces, and she and her mom are doing fine.  She’s a beautiful, alert little girl who will give her mom a run for her money, I’m sure!

You are probably ready now, with the cool days and nights we’ve been enjoying lately, to decorate for Fall.  We’ve got everything you’ll need for outdoor decorating, from corn stalks, Indian corn and gourds, to pumpkins, straw bales, mums and flowering kale.  And we’ve got fall flags and scarecrows and fall ribbons for bows.  Stop in today and pick out what you need to make your entryway colorful and welcoming.  And pick out one of Yankee Candle’s new fall scents to add the fragrance element. 

We’re busy getting ready for our annual Harvestfest celebration. Harvestfest is our biggest event of the year, and this year we’ve extended it to include two weekends, September 19th and 20th, and September 26th and 27th.  We have free food and activities for adults and kids on both Saturdays, and free food and music on both Sundays.  We have outside vendors who will join us to add to the fun.  Check out the schedule here, and make plans to join us for some down home enjoyment!

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Counting, counting, counting! We have finished our twice yearly inventory just in time for the new Yankee Candle scents for fall to be put on the shelves.  Here are some –

Farmers Market.  I love that one just for the name! Doesn’t it make you think of nature’s bounty? Sweet berries, juicy apples, succulent peaches and warm spices.  Yum!

And MacIntosh Spice is like the MacIntosh we all love with another layer of scent– crisp tart apples sprinkled with freshly ground cinnamon. I know that one will be going home with me.  How about you?  Come in and check out these and the other new fragrances for fall.  And around Labor Day we’ll have the new scents for the Christmas season.

We got a new shipment of perennials today, including a new one for us called echinacea “pink poodle.” It has a fully double fluffy pink flower head about 4 inches across.  It will grow in full sun and tops out at 2 1/2-3 feet tall. Come in and check them out– they’ll make a great addition to your perennial garden.

On June 17th, somewhere between 8 and 9 PM, an 8-minute hailstorm devastated our vegetable gardens and flower gardens, and did substantial damage to our Garden Center.  We spent a day cleaning up and licking our wounds, and then we sucked it up and moved on.  We put the remaining viable plants in a “What the Hail” sale, threw away the product that was unsaleable at any price, and ordered in new stuff for you.  Down, but definitely not out! Come in and see what’s new!

We are moving into the larger perennial phase of the season.  Most of the plants that we get in from now on will be in larger pots– for your benefit as well as ours.  We figure that by now you’ll want a plant that has a pretty good head of steam in the development department rather than a quart-size starter plant.  And larger pots are easier for us to keep looking good when it gets hot.  (If it ever gets hot this year…)

Bob went north yesterday to comb the suppliers for nice plants.  Come in this weekend and see all the goodies!